Pete, did your elk hide arrive yet? Jimi Hi Nick (and everyone),
I'm not sure if you mean MAKE as in "to create from scratch" or MAKE as in "to create from a pre-spun fiber". I do both, but the easiest to start with is blending your own colors. Simply put, you can do this one of two main ways: the blender method or the carding method. The blender is simply that: you slice n' dice the fiber (yarn, rabbit fur off the hide, lamb's wool, etc) into 1/4" to 1/8" pieces, keeping them dry, and then use a blender or coffee grinder to blend them. If you blend them wet, it will still work, but you need a strainer to collect the dubbing and a paper- towel to air-dry the dubbing on. If you have loose fur, you can shake the dubbings with water in a closed container and strain them, but it's easier to simply roll them in your palm. As for carding, this is using two brushes with many teeth - usually metal - to pull the fibers apart and align them. The resulting sheet of dubbing is mixed, frayed, and aligned. A cheaper alternative to a pair of carding brushes is a pair of animal hair-brushes, usually for dogs. I have great success with this, and the neighbors aren't banging on the door to turn off the blender... Remember that you still have to "slice n' dice" the material before carding, and the size of the pieces pre-carding determines how bushy or fine the material is. As for doing things from scratch for synthetics, I wouldn't go that route... Contact me off-list if you're insistant, but trust me, it's too much of a hastle and costs far more than just getting pre-made stuff. I'll leave dyeing materials for someone else in the know as this e-mail is huge already. :) Hope this helps a tad, and tight lines, Pete
